


The (Step) Mothering Busines

by iamfitzwilliamdarcy



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-17
Updated: 2017-10-17
Packaged: 2019-01-18 12:47:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12388386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamfitzwilliamdarcy/pseuds/iamfitzwilliamdarcy
Summary: Damian is less than thrilled about Selina and Bruce’s upcoming marriage. Selina has a little something up her sleeve, though (literally). (Selina, Damian, a kitten)





	The (Step) Mothering Busines

**Author's Note:**

  * For [catie_writes_things](https://archiveofourown.org/users/catie_writes_things/gifts).



The thing about marriage was that you married  _into_  a family. And for Selina Kyle that meant  marrying a man who’d adopted five kids. Marrying into an emotionally constipated vigilante family of bats and birds. Some of them who have died. More than once.

Tell that one to the guy in  _My Big Fat Greek Wedding_. Ha.

She dresses up like a cat, though, so she probably deserves it.

It’s actually not that bad. Really. The kids are mostly grown. She’s had a soft spot for little Dickie Grayson since the day he tumbled into Bruce Wayne’s public life. She’d been at that party, his first “debut,” months and months after his parents had died. Seen how he’d smiled and charmed the adults. But she’d also seen how he’d tugged nervously at his tie, had stayed glued to Bruce’s side.

How he’d picked up the earrings she’d dropped when a server had bumped into her. Rookie mistake, she’d thought at the time, when he plopped them back into her hand, “Miss, you dropped these.”

He frowned down at them and added, “Those look like the one’s the Senator’s wife was wearing.”

She closed her fist around them hurriedly, but he continued, giving her sudden, small, shy smile. “Are you  not wearing them ‘cause they match hers? ‘Cause you would look just as good in them.”

And he’d bounced away back to Bruce’s side, never knowing that they  _were_  the Senator’s wife’s earrings. She wonders, sometimes, if he remembers her from that night. She’s never asked.

He was suspicious of her enough as Robin, especially those nights she stole Batman away from him. He’s grown up a lot since then. It startles her, sometimes, to see him now, a man (even if a young one) in his own right.

Jason’s one she wishes she had found before Bruce. It’s the Gotham street kid in her. She’d nagged Bruce about the kid constantly. Had cried for hours when she found out, too late, long after his funeral, that he’d died.

She still drops in on the Red Hood’s patrol routes. He pretends he minds. She knows he doesn’t. Sometimes he mentions a kid who could maybe use a cat, if she had a spare one lying around. She whispers tips to him, when she gets them. When they’re useful. Sometimes she leaves food at his safe house. He never mentions it.

Tim she did find before Bruce, trailing along rooftops at night, all of 11 years old with a camera slung around his neck. She’d taken him back to her place and given him some food. He had protested, saying he had plenty to eat, but she knew hunger could come in the form of loneliness, so she’d listened to him talk about Batman and Robin and veiled comments about his parents’ being gone on vacation or travel for work and him sneaking away from the nanny.  

He came back a few times. Feed strays, and they always do. Selina knew better, but soft spots and all. He found Bruce not too long after, anyway.

He was smart as a whip, sneaky, analytical. She’d told Bruce,  late in his Robin career, that Tim would make a good thief. He wouldn’t speak to her for a month after that.

Then there was Cassandra. She didn’t know her very well, but they’d sparred a few times, and she always smiled her hockey smile at Selina. The last time, just a few weeks ago, she’d said, “Graceful,” when they were done.

Selina had paused in sipping from her water bottle, and Cassandra, sensing (reading?) her uncertainty, repeated, “Graceful. You fight graceful. Like cat.” And she’d held up her hands to her face like paws and hissed. Smiled her gap-toothed grin again. Selina thought that was friendship.

It was Damian who was the problem. Damian was still little, not even eleven yet, and he’d declared, in his lofty way, more than once, how disapproving he was of his father’s impending marriage.

“I don’t know what to do with him,” Bruce says, once morning.

It isn’t quite dawn yet, and she’s snuggled up under his arm, (in her apartment because Alfred has gone suddenly traditional on them, leading up to the wedding, leaving Bruce confused, picking his battles), head resting on his chest. She can hear his heart beat. She thinks she’ll never be over how massive he was. How much space he takes up and how she fits right in.

“I’ve tried talking to him,” Bruce continues. “He won’t listen. I try telling  him but you know how…independent he is.”

“I was going to say stubborn,” she says.

“That too,” he agrees. He huffs out a sight, lets his head flop against the backboard. “I’m just out of ideas.”

Selina laughs, a little. Half the time, Bruce is bewildered by his kids, has no idea what to do with them.  

“You take a break,” she says. “I’ll see what I can do about this one.”

Bruce looks at her skeptically, and she smiles back. She may not know exactly how to handle Damian, but she knows who to ask.

And so it’s with Dick Grayson’s advice and her own spunk that she finds the kid on the Manor grounds. It’s chilly, afternoon, October with a gray sky and colorful trees. He’s wearing a navy hoodie, huddled on top of a slope, hunched over a sketchbook.

He doesn’t say anything as she approaches, but she knows he knows she’s there. He’s been raised by assassins and his father makes it his business to be aware of his surroundings.

“Can I join you?” she asks, and takes his irritated  _TT_  as a yes.

She settles down next to him, glad she wore pants (instead of the wooly black skirt Bruce bought her last week, the one she’s been dying to wear) and leans back on her hands. He scrunches around his sketchbook to keep her from seeing what he’s drawing; she doesn’t try to look. She sits in silence for a while, lets him get used to her presence, and then says, “I have a present for you.”

Damian tuts again. “Any attempts at bribery won’t change how I feel about your impending marriage to my father.”

“It’s a kitten,” Selina continues, as if he hasn’t spoken. “A stray I picked up a few days ago. I’m having trouble thinking of a name for her. I thought you might be able to help.”

Damian focuses in on his sketchbook, but she can see he’s listening. Interested. She turns to her bag and snaps it open, lets the little calico cat clamber into her arms. She catches Damian sneaking a glance, but he tuts once more, turns back to his sketch.

“Her mother rejected her,” Selina says. She puts the kitten on the ground, and she bats at her hand. “She was starving. I’ve been bottle feeding her.”

And she had put on a bit of weight since then, was doing well. Curious, playful, sweet. Thriving. She adventures over to Damian, who reaches out a hand gently, lets her sniff it.

They both watch her for a bit. Finally, Selina says, “Damian, I’m not here to replace your mother.”

He stiffens all over. He looks like his father, when she’s caught him off guard, and it catches her off guard, how much they look a like.

He says, “You could never replace Mother.”

Selina nods. “Talia is certainly a force to be reckoned with.”

“The thing is,” she continues after a moment, “I don’t want to try to replace her. I’m not your mother. I won’t ever be. But I am a part of your father’s life, and I’d like to at least be a part of yours, if you’d let me.”

The kitten decides she likes Damian, stands up on her hind legs to paw at his knees. He dangles his pencil in front of her.

“Father has made it clear I have little say in the matter,” Damian says, not looking at her, focused on the kitten. “And I know you only brought this stray because Grayson suggested it might be a  _bonding_  experience.”

Selina takes a moment to be impressed in how much disdain such a small person could put into his sneer. Then, she concedes, “Dick did suggest you like animals.”

“Grayson is a sentimental fool,” Damian says, but without much heat. The kitten had climbed into his lap, and he was stroking her head. And anyway, Selina has seen the two of them together as Batman and Robin, knows Damian loves Dick Grayson as best he knows how.

“Maybe so,” she says.

They’re silent for a while longer. To Selina’s surprise, it’s Damian who breaks it, “Her mother, you said--.” Trails off.

“Abandoned her, yes” Selina finishes. “Sometimes mothers do that.”

“Darwinism,” Damian says. “Survival of the fittest.”

“Mm,” Selina agrees.

“It’s not cruel,” Damain adds.

“No,” Selina says. “But sometimes it’s nice to have someone to intervene. The kittens usually grow just fine, with a little TLC. I sometimes wish,” she confesses, not looking at him though she can feel him looking at her.  She breaks off, starts differently, “Mothers are at tricky thing. I sometimes wish,” she repeats. “Sometimes wish someone had for me, too. Intervened, I mean.” She shakes her head, and glances over, meets his gaze.

Damian looks away, down at the kitten, and then back over at her. “You are not my mother,” he repeats.

“No,” she agrees. “I’m not.”

Damian hums. “As long as that’s clear,” he says. His voice is clipped, in the way she’s learned, already, means he’s feeling uncomfortable, hiding emotion he feels is a weakness.

“Absolutely,” she confirms.

They’re silent a while longer. The wind picks up, an the gray clouds darken with the setting sun. She gets up to leave, bends over to pluck the kitten out of Damian’s lap. Maybe it had been a bad idea after all.

But Damian shifts so she can’t touch the kitten, clutches it to him. It’s very small, even in the arms of such a small boy.

“Delilah will need to get used to her new home,” Damian tells her. “And be introduced to Alfred, Bat-Cow, Titus, and Goliath. I think it best she stays rather than move again after your…marriage.”

He doesn’t quite manage to say marriage without a hint of disapproval, but it’s only a small one. Selina hides her smile, nods. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing you and Delilah soon,” she says.

“Unfortunately, I expect so,” Damian agrees.

She reaches out and scratches the kitten’s ears, resists the urge to push her luck and ruffle Damian’s hair, and heads back to the Manor where she can’t wait to, very smugly, tell Bruce about her breakthrough. And the new addition to his menagerie.

Well, it’s not like Bruce doesn’t have a stray habit, too.


End file.
